Surrender and rebirth
by goolcaptain
Summary: Buffy is seduced by Drusilla and allows herself to be sired. But there's ALWAYS a way back.....


"Take me" Buffy undid her blouse and exposed her neck to Drusilla, her heart thumping in her chest, as helpless in her desire as she was in Drusilla's thrall. Dru hesitated for not a moment, diving in and sinking her fangs deeply into Buffy's tender flesh. She gasped as she felt her lifeblood drain from her body. Her last memory as a human was Dru cutting her wrist vein and letting the blood drip down past Buffy's lips.

Buffy clutched her heart as it began to beat again. It was the most glorious sensation she had ever felt, even better than her soul being restored. She tentatively crept out into the bright sunlight and simply basked in it for what seemed like aeons. Angel stayed in the shadows and watched contentedly. She traced her teeth with her tongue. Her fangs were gone. She smiled.  
"What is that? " she asked pointing to the jar.  
"Mohra Demon blood"  
"Would it work on you?" Her voice was full of hope.  
He put it back in his pocket. "No"  
"And Drusilla?"  
Angel pointedly rubbed some blood of his favourite broadsword, his expression blank. "I've already brought her peace!"

"Buffy?"  
"Yes Dawnie?"  
"Why did you let Drusilla kill you"

"Surrender. To give up, to let yourself be taken over, after so long struggling and fighting. It was just such a relief. The seduction, to feel needed, to have her feed off me. There's part of me that wanted it so much, to know what it felt like after all this time"  
Dawn didn't know how long Joyce had been listening at the doorway but she came over and slipped under the covers with Buffy and herself, ringing here arms around their waists.  
"There's an underlying masochism in women Dawnie, just like there's an inbuilt misogyny in men, sex, childbirth, mensturation, we live with pain all our lives, the dark desire within us all. When I gave myself to Drusilla, when I let her take me, when I gave in and let myself become her slave, it was the most erotic powerful sensation I'd ever known. To be so powerless, to have her be my entire world, to give myself to evil after all these years of toil, to be just taken and feel no guilt over my pleasure, it was a greater high than you can ever imagine, no drug can equal it".  
"And just like any other drug you come down hard. I loved being her victim but didn't want to die, I had so much to live for. I thought by being sired I would live on in a way but the thing she turned me into, the predator I became... I was only a vampire for a few minutes before Willow restored my soul but they were just, just indescribable..." She was shaking and weeping as she spoke, her tears staining Dawn's pyjamas. Joyce held her close, brushing her cheeks with the hem of her nightie.  
"Imagine if you looked at pictures of the Holocaust or famines in Africa and you weren't appalled, imagine if you actually found them funny? Imagine you were in a ward for newborn babies and it was on fire and their screams were just the sweetest music you could imagine"  
She paused, unable to continue. Dawn hugged her closely, closing her eyes and nuzzling her head to Buffy's.  
"You don't have to go on Buffy, we understand..."  
"No you don't" Buffy replied, "You can't possibly"  
"Let her talk, Dawn" Joyce ordered "She needs to"  
"Do you know what being a vampire really feels like? It feels like you're drowning in a barrel of acid, you're drowning and it's burning you and you're upside down and you don't know which way is up and you struggle and you fight but there's no way out, no way at all and you're freezing at the same time. That's why they hunt us, that's why they need our blood, they've lost their humanity and this is the only way they can even have a taste of it, you can't see yourself in the mirror because it would destroy you to see the monster you've become"  
She stared at the ceiling. Dawn was crying too by now, Joyce just holding herself together.  
"It's a world without love. I would have killed you both and it would have meant nothing to me" an icy chill shot through the room, Dawn and Joyce shivering despite the bedclothes and the warm Californian night.  
"You can't even feel love for other vampires, obsession, infatuation but you don't feel that human empathy for one another. Drusilla never loved me, if she had she wouldn't have sired me, she wouldn't have done that awful thing to me"  
Joyce stroked her hair, Dawn gently rubbed her stomach. She turned to face them.  
"I'm glad it happened, I'm not sure I believe in God or providence or fate or anything but I understand my purpose now, why it's so important. I don't kill them because it saves their victim's any more. I kill them because I know I'm doing them the greatest kindness imaginable. They can't appreciate it but I am"  
They nodded in understanding. Buffy took their hands in hers.  
"Do you know the only things that feel better than allowing yourself to be sired?"  
They shook their heads, disturbed by the implication of the question.  
"Being resouled, it feels like breaking the surface when you're drowning" She clutched their hands to her left breast, allowing them to feel her warmth, the beating of her heart, restored by Mohra blood. "Being made human again, like walking up onto the beach and collapsing in the bright sunlight, just to look in that mirror and see your own reflection, to feel your blood coursing through your veins"  
She wrapped their arms around them and hugged them to her. "And best of all, this"  
"It's OK" Dawn choked the words out as Buffy sobbed. "It's all OK now"  
Joyce couldn't find the words but just stroked Buffy's ears with her finger and kissed her neck softly.  
Buffy lay there in her bed, in the arms of her adoring sister and mother, crying her heart out as she relished her humanity, only able to appreciate it because she had once lost it.  
And regained it again, the most precious gift of all.  
She hoped somewhere Drusilla could feel the same, that she too could regain her humanity, regain her soul and rest in the arms of her family.  
And in a place far, far away, she did.


End file.
